Vladimir Putin’s aggressive language about Russian forces’ becoming more involved in the conflict in Ukraine has had an unintended consequence: bolstering NATO.

“In a sense, the Ukraine crisis has given NATO a new lifeline after the mixed results in Afghanistan,” says Steven Erlanger, our London bureau chief, as NATO leaders prepare for a summit meeting in Wales this week.

This renewed vigor for collective European defense deepens the divisions between Russia and the West, Mr. Erlanger says, and leaves an especially awkward situation for Ukraine, which isn’t part of NATO.

It’s “clear that neither Washington nor NATO is going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine,” he says, “so the Ukraine crisis also hardens the line between those inside NATO and those in the security wilderness outside of it.”

Follow the money.

The extremist Sunni militants known as ISIS claim the killings of two Western journalists are reprisals for American airstrikes against the group.

But the motive for the executions — first James Foley’s and now Steven J. Sotloff’s — may be more mercenary, says our intelligence reporter Scott Shane.

“Kidnapping for ransom is a major source of revenue for ISIS,” he says.

While the United States has a policy against paying ransom, Mr. Shane says, “killing Mr. Foley and Mr. Sotloff arguably gives credence to threats to other hostages from countries, mainly European, that have paid millions for the release of their citizens.”

But there are ways to undercut ISIS that would not necessarily help President Bashar al-Assad retain power, says our Mideast correspondent Anne Barnard.

One way, she says, is “stopping the flow of foreign militants through Turkey into Syria — a flow happening essentially in plain sight as recruits arrive from across the region, Europe and beyond.”

And, she notes, “Hitting ISIS in its strongholds in Syria’s remote desert east and northeast could help weaken it in Iraq while mainly affecting areas that Assad has long appeared to write off.”

However, Ms. Barnard notes, there is some discussion in policy circles that the United States may have to find a way to work with Mr. Assad to really halt the group.

• The equalizer.

“No matter how much money or fame or adoration they amass, they are subject to the same humiliation, ridicule and venom that women online face every day.”

That’s Jessica Roy, writing for New York magazine, on the hacking that put hundreds of nude photos of female celebrities online, among them Jennifer Lawrence and Ariana Grande.

“There has long been a dubious conventional wisdom that A-list female celebrities must grow accustomed to this kind of harassment as the ‘price of fame,'” Ms. Roy writes.

But fame doesn’t mean women completely cede their right to privacy.

“The attitude of entitlement that dictates otherwise is just another manifestation of many men’s belief that they have a protected right to view, touch and comment upon women’s bodies, consensually or not,” she writes.

MARKETS

• Wall Street stocks were mixed. The S.&P. 500 was flat.

TONIGHT

• Behind “Frozen.”

The directors, songwriters and actors behind the highest-grossing animated film to date tell “The Story of ‘Frozen,” and the host, Josh Gad (the voice of Olaf), revisits the Norwegian areas that inspired the fictional kingdom. (8 p.m. Eastern, ABC)